CDE
Common data element (CDE). A governed definition of a radiology finding or of one property of a finding, authored and balloted through the ACR and RSNA Common Data Elements programme and published on RadElement.1 The word is used at two granularities, which is the main source of confusion: a CDE set is a whole finding, a CDE element is one property inside it.
CDEs are the standards-track counterpart of OIDM’s own finding models. The 2026 status deck describes finding models as a “CDE workbench”: a proving ground where LLM-assisted authoring produces content quickly, and the best of it graduates into the formal CDE process.2 The 2023 site post that set the project’s direction describes findings as FHIR Observations “semantically labeled with ACR/RSNA Common Data Element identifiers.”3
Between informal authoring and publication sits a staging step: CDEStaging holds candidate definitions “prior to their entering the review pipeline.”4
Synonyms and near-synonyms
- Common data element is the expansion; this knowledgebase uses “CDE” after first use.
- RadElement is the publication site and the coding system, not the definitions themselves.
- Data element is the next-generation vocabulary’s node type, narrower than “CDE” in the set sense.
- Finding model is the OIDM artifact, faster to author and not balloted.
Identifier form
RDES### for a set, RDE#### for an element. See CDE set and CDE element.
Where it is used
CDEs and RadElement, CDE staging, and Finding models and CDEs.
Conflicts
“CDE” is used for the set, for the element, and for the programme as a whole in different source documents. Where precision matters, this knowledgebase says “CDE set” or “CDE element.”